Sunday 11 June 2017 saw the annual Bishop's Cleeve Street Fair here in our wonderful village.

Every year, we invite people to enter teddy bears (or any stuffed toy!) into the Teddy Bear Parachute Jump. Designs are left to the entrants, and we have two prizes: for best jump and best design. At just £1 per entry, we saw the launch of a whopping 74 teddies off the church roof. The money raised goes straight to the Bishop's Cleeve Street Fair to support the funding of next year's event.

We were blessed with a beautifully warm afternoon with a gusty breeze, which seemed to go in most of the jumpers' favours! It took nearly an hour to launch all 74 bears off the roof, each given a fantastic introduction by our compare, Robey. Most bears made it to the ground without mishap, although poor 'Super Penguin' has yet to be retrieved from a tall tree in a garden behind the church!

We saw entries of all shapes and sizes, but our biggest entrant was 'Basil the Bomber' with a huge Ikea bag parachute (pictured above).

Another impressive jumper was 'Bumpy Dog', which travelled all the way from Mansfield, Notts, to jump in support of a local hospice charity.

Another notable entry was our oldest competitor, 'Bunny', a 30-year-old teddy jumping for the first time this year and we're glad had a safe journey down to the ground!

We think every teddy did brilliantly, but, after much deliberation, the judges decided the overall winners were:
'Mike the Knight' who won the prize for 'best jump' and one of the Brownie's bears won the prize for the 'best parachute'.

This is always such a fun family event and it wouldn't happen without all the support from some fantastic people and the local community. We'd particularly like to thank:

• our organisers, Andrew & Marion Young
  
• our parachute jump launchers, Mat Bevan and Rick Arnold
  
• our fantastic compere, Robey Jenkins
  
• the Brownies' teddy retrieval and medical assistance team (thankfully, no teddies were hurt during the event!)
  
• our judging panel
  
• our churchwarden team for their support and advice
  
• local shops for helping promote the event by displaying our posters
  
• the small 'army' of helpers in the Church Cafe for their excellent hospitality keeping the coffee and cake flowing!